LARGE PRINT
Toni Morrison
Writers for Readers Cecilia Ekbäck
Born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio, Toni Morrison was the second eldest of four children. Her father, George Wofford, worked primarily as a welder, but held several jobs at once to support his family. Her mother, Ramah, was a domestic worker. Morrison later accredited her parents with instilling in her a love of reading, music, and folklore. At Howard University,
Cecilia Ekbäck was born in the north of Sweden; her parents come from Lapland. During her teens, she worked as a journalist and after university specialised in marketing. Over the course of twenty years her work took her to Russia, Germany, France, Portugal, the Middle East and the UK. In 2010, she finished a Masters in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway. She now lives in
Calgary with her husband and twin daughters, ’returning home’ to the landscape and the characters of her childhood in her writing.
On how her childhood influenced her book: I think my childhood is in this story in the shape of the setting, the culture and drivers such as the Church. The stories of my parents and grandparents are in there. The fear we felt growing up is in there. The characters are spun from people in my past.
Cecilia Ekbäck’s striking debut is a welcome addition to a new brand of northern noir – eerie, atmospheric tales of remote and icy wrongdoing . . . The Guardian
For the most part, Wolf Winter is an absorbing and impressive debut from an author who I look forward to reading again . . . The Globe and Mail
Morrison continued to pursue her interest in literature, now 84 her many literary laurels include a Pulitzer in 1988, a Nobel in 1993, becoming the eighth woman and the first African-American to win the prize, and, in 2012, the presidential medal of freedom, from her friend Barack Obama. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters.
On writing a book: If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.
Morrison wanted to not only broaden the tastes of the industry, she also wanted to change the fate of a literary culture that had to either diversify or die . . .
The New York Times Magazine
God Help The Child is the kind of novel where you can feel the magnificence just beyond your reach . . . The Guardian
What we’re reading . . .
Deep in the chalk, something is stirring. This is a time of endings and beginnings, old friends and new, a blurring of edges and a shifting of power. As the fairy horde prepares for invasion, Tiffany must summon all the witches to stand with her. The final instalment of Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series The Shepherd’s Crown is a joyful sign-off from a master of fantasy fiction.
In The School Gate Survival Guide by Kerry Fisher, Maia Etxeleku is a cleaner for ladies who lunch. With mop and bucket in tow, she spends her days dashing from house to house cleaning up after them, as they rush from one exhausting Pilates class to the next. But an unusual inheritance catapults her and her children into the very exclusive world of Stirling Hall School – a place where no child can survive without organic apricots and no woman goes a week without a manicure.
2 ISIS large print books
New Releases 2016